- Joined
- Oct 24, 2018
- Messages
- 38
- Purraise
- 21
we got a 3rd baby in the winter, she's adorable buuuut we are struggling to teach her house manners. her personality is more mischievous than my 2 cats when they were kittens, put together. she's under a year so she has a lot of time to catch on, but she's very stubborn. things we need tips on:
- darting out the door. then running all over the front/ on neighbor's front, trying to climb tree, running under cars, etc to evade us. when we take her out with "permission"(allow her out on the front porch with us, usually with her harness on), she's pretty tame and just lays in her boundaries (no going beyond the porch cement or else she gets taken back, and eventually back inside after not listening a few times). but when she tries to dart out behind us when we're going out (very dangerous because the door closes by itself, and is heavy for a cat obviously), she runs around like she's got zoomies, totally ignoring us and won't run back unless scared. thing is, she's super curious and brave so that's hard
- scratching very hardly when held/ wants to be let down...like mercilessly. when she's being held and wants to get down, she digs her claws in full force, often kicking off with them or continue to squirm with them.. we have many horrible scratches from this happening. she seems to only be docile being held on her back?...which most cats typically dislike. or being held with the bottom hand between her legs instead (like a sitting position) so that she can't scratch. it doesn't happen all the time but when it does we immediately let her go (she doesn't care how high she is or if she gets hurt, she just suddenly wants down now), and audibly show distress like "ow!" or a "ssst!", sometimes putting her in a separate room to calm down and we walk away as a "timeout". this has slowly been improving but still needs work
- counter/table/ floor scavenging. before/during/after cooking, she is always trying to get into stuff, no matter how many times we deter her from the counters. we simply tell her to get down or no, then pick her up and put her down if she doesn't listen. usually she does her stubborn cat thing like "I can hear you...but I don't care" I also use light water splashes when I'm at the sink, or shooing her until she jumps off. as for the floor scavenging, she's always trying to eat ANYTHING on the floor. then when I go to see what it is, she grabs it and runs like dogs do! we try to keep the floors clean, but it getting dirty is inevitable